From: ddwake1@attcanada.ca
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 23:57:30 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Prelude to an Apocalypse (1/1)
Source: direct

Title: Prelude to an Apocalypse
Author: Spooky
Rating: PG
Keywords: Consortium, character death
Spoilers: The Sixth Extinction -- Amor Fati, En Ami
Archive: Sure. Just let me know where so I can brag
Disclaimer: I'll put them away when I'm done, Ma. Honest!
Summary: C.G.B. Spender succumbs to his 'operation,' and
Mulder's and Scully's protection dies with him.


Prelude to an Apocalypse


I told myself I could endure anything, as long as he was with me. 

But they took him days? ago. It must have been days. The meal trays have
come and gone, untouched. I have no appetite. Neither of us has ever been
gone so long before.

I'm afraid what it means. 

We don't know where we are, or even who holds us prisoner. There are no
windows, the floor is concrete, the walls cinder block. The sink and
toilet are chipped and rusty and barely adequate; the mattress on the army
cot is thin, lumpy and smelled pungentl y of vomit and urine when I was
thrust into this cell. There are no sheets or blankets. The door is steel,
with only a slot through which the stuff they laughingly call food is
pushed. 

They came in the night, silent as ghosts, everything about them screaming
black ops. I never had a chance to reach for my weapon; there were masked
faces, a needle, darkness, then this place. 

Mulder apparently fared somewhat better, for all the good it did. He
managed to reach his gun and killed one of them before they got to him.
They beat him for it, and only drugged him later -- retribution for their
fallen comrade. 

Why we're here is a mystery. We haven't ticked off anyone lately, that
we're aware of. We've penetrated no government secrets, been privy to no
confidential plans, broken into no concealed facilities. In short, we've
kept our noses clean. 

But C.G.B. Spender is dead, belatedly joining his co- conspirators who
perished at El Rico. Mulder thinks our protection died with Spender, that
whoever is running the Consortium now has decided we've gotten too close
to the truth. Or simply become too annoying. We've become expendable.

They could kill us, but why waste perfectly good lab rats? 

Mulder says Skinner will be looking for us, and the Gunmen, so we can't
give up hope. That's assuming, of course, that they aren't here too. We
don't talk about that. There are a lot of things we don't talk about, yet
we have conversations we never would have had otherwise. Albeit routed
through the small vent near the ceiling in the wall separating our cells. 

I don't know how long we've been here. Sometimes it feels like forever. I
forget things. What the spring breeze feels like in my hair. The feel of
the afghan Mom made for me when I moved out on my own. The smell of baking
bread. The wheeze of the Hoover e levator as it lands in the basement. The
taste of coffee. 

The sparkle of excitement in Mulder's eyes when a case catches his
interest. The way he sticks out his lower lip and pouts. His wry humour
and razor-sharp intellect. The way his hand feels against my back.... 

I promised myself I wouldn't do this. 

I can't see him, on the other side of this wall. I haven't seen him since
we said good-bye at work and headed home for the weekend. Now that I have
only memories of his face, it's all I can think about. I revel in his
voice; I never noticed before how ful l of inflection it really is. I
always considered it a bit of a monotone, but there are so many nuances
now that I've learned to listen. The vent carries our voices to each other
-- it's the only contact they've allowed us. 

We've made a pact, Mulder and I, to survive. To hang on until help arrives
or we find a way out. We know how unlikely either of those events is. But
all we can do is be defiant to the end, to remain true to ourselves and
not let them win. "They can destroy our bodies, but not our spirit,"
Mulder said once, sounding a trifle embarrassed at how corny it sounded. B
ut it is true. We don't have to let them win, to take away what we are to
each other, to ourselves. 

It must be months now, that we've been here. We've seen no chance to
escape. It's a hard admission, but now we're not strong enough to make the
attempt. 

I never realized before this precisely how much information is stored in
my partner's incredible brain. I often envied him his eidetic memory when
we worked on cases, early in our partnership. Then I discovered the
downside, screamed through too thin mote l walls. The good and the bad.
Unfortunately, my partner has had far too much of the latter and not
nearly enough of the former. I stopped envying his memory when my own
nightmares began piling up. Still, it keeps us occupied, while he regales
me with the
 minutiae of oyster diving or the mating habits of water buffalo. He
recites Shakespeare, Eliot and Whitman -- I can request anything he's
read. And Mulder is incredibly well read.  He'll talk until his voice is
hoarse and I'm amazed at the aches and pain and fear you can leave behind
when you least expect it. When Mulder's talking, I close my eyes and I'm
no longer in a small, cold, none-too-clean room, dressed only in a
used-to-be- white hospital gown. I'm there, seeing whatever pictures
Mulder has painted for me. And I know I can endure anything as long as
he's here. 

I pitch in whenever I can. Neither of us particularly want to dwell on
medical procedures right now, and I don't have Mulder's memory. So I talk
of my childhood, growing up with three siblings, moving constantly from
base to base. It's not much, but Mulde r soaks it up like a sponge, making
witty observations. 

I can hear the tread of footsteps, then the clank of keys as Mulder's cell
is opened. I am nearly faint with relief. He'sbackhe'sbackhe'sback. We can
deal with anything else. 

There's a thud, and I grit my teeth, knowing they've simply let Mulder
fall to the floor. I call his name as the door slams shut, but my only
answer is a low, painful moan; the sound of violent retching. I close my
eyes in sympathy. 

"Mulder?" I try again, but I get no reply. I envision him lying on the
floor, in a pool of vomit, without the strength to move. I settle in to
wait, my ears strained for the slightest noise from the adjoining cell.
It's never been this bad before. I am we ll and truly scared. 

Another mealtime has gone by the time Mulder rouses. I forced myself to
eat, the unappetizing stew tasting like ashes in my mouth. I'm so nervous
now, I'm not sure I'll keep it down. It wasn't long after the trays were
collected that I heard groans through the vent. Dry heaves. I call him,
urging him to drink some water; he has to be dehydrated. I hear more
moaning and stumbling and I can hear running water. With luck he'll feel
better now. 

"Mulder?" I call again. 

"Hey, Scully." His voice is low and raspy and undoubtedly sore. I can
sympathize. Screaming does that. 

"You okay?" 

"Y'know Scully, I need a new maid. This one's just not working out." 

I smile, in spite of myself. Typical Mulder. But the slur in his words
worries me. 

"There isn't a maid in the world you could pay enough to tackle your
apartment, Mulder. Not on your salary." 

A low guffaw. "You're probably right. She'd probably just be lusting after
my body anyway...." His voice trails away. 

"Mulder? Mulder?" My retort vanishes as panic grips me. 

"'S'okay Scully. 'M here. Jus' need to sleep." 

"No, Mulder, stay awake. You need to stay awake, Mulder.  Talk to me. Sing
to me, Mulder. I sang for you, but you've never sung for me. Your turn,
Mulder. Sing to me so I'll know you're awake." My words tumble over
themselves and I desperately wish I could see him. Nausea, slurred
speech.... It could be a pletho ra of things, from drugs to head trauma. I
wish I could see his eyes -- I envision them unfocused and dilated and I
am as near panic as I have ever been. I can't help him. Images flit
through my skull: Dr. Charles Goldstein, drilled holes and seizures; Mu
lder crucified on an operating table, bandage around his head. How many
traumas could his head take? He could fall into a coma and die. He could
leave me. 

He could leave me. 

HE COULD LEAVE ME. 

"C'mon, Mulder," I coax, desperate. "It's not fair that you've heard me
sing, very badly I might add, and I haven't had the same pleasure.
Partners, remember? Equals. Sauce for the goose and all that." I'm
rambling and I don't care. The only thing that matters right now is that I
hear Mulder's voice. That I kn ow he's alive. 

"Huh," he mumbles and I can barely make out the words. "You jus' kep'
singin' the same verse over an' over. Couldn't take the second one.
Coward." 

"Sing it for me, Mulder." Of course he was right. The second verse of the
song I sang in the Florida forest would have invited too much innuendo.
Innuendo I wasn't equipped to deal with after I had gone to my partner's
motel room with wine and then held h is head in my lap.

But innuendo I was willing to bear now. Hell, he could flat out
proposition me and I'd be thrilled. Well, thrilled for another reason too.
It would mean he was still compos mentis. Still alive. 

"If I were the king of the world, I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd...." His
voice stutters to a halt and so does my heart. 

I'm straining on tiptoes to get closer to the vent. I catch a whiff of
vomit and know it must be much worse for Mulder. I hear him mumble
something unintelligible, then I catch "...all the boys an' girls...."
Then his voice fades into silence. 

"Mulder!" I shout. "Dammit, Mulder, answer me! Wake up! I need you." The
silence mocks me. He's ditched me again. "Don't you die on me, Mulder," I
murmur through my tears. Don't leave me. 

But I might be overly pessimistic. It doesn't have to be a head injury. He
could be fine when he wakes up. But Mulder never does anything the easy
way. I'm suddenly furious. Any good scientist knows that the lab rats have
to be kept healthy or the experim ent is invalidated. But maybe the
results of these experiments are not an issue -- torture by any other
name.... Our lives -- and deaths -- are simply immaterial to them. 

Two meals go by before I hear the moans that mean he's waking up. I'm
ecstatic. 

It doesn't take long before my euphoria fades. He isn't awake. He's
delirious. His muttering is unintelligible, but for a few words. Once I
could swear he said, "You're not my father, you son-of-a-bitch!" I'm
afraid to think to whom he might have been referring. 

I hear snatches of conversations we've had, conversations he's had with
others. He's mixing them all up. It breaks my heart when he calls out to
me and I can't comfort him. I talk to him, but it's not the same as
holding him. I rant and rave and beg whoev er holds us captive to help
him, and I finally pray, something I stopped doing once we arrived here. I
just couldn't find it in me to believe that God meant us to suffer so. But
I pray now, pray for my partner to survive. Pray not to be left alone. 

I worry about Mulder's fever. I worry about how many meals he's missed and
when was the last time he had any fluids. I worry about the dry heaves and
the acrid stink of urine and feces that's joined the lovely bouquet of
vomit wafting through the vent. I can take it, I'm a pathologist after
all, or at least I was, and I've smelled much worse. But it's all
indicative of my partner's declining health and I worry. And I pray. 

I think he's ready to die. 

I am woken out of a troubled sleep by the clanging of a door. I hadn't
meant to sleep; I had wanted to keep an ear out for Mulder. He had been
somewhat lucid a while ago, before lapsing into uneasy sleep. My stomach
flipflops when I realized they've come for him again. 

The tears come as I hear his pitiful whimpers, his screams. "No, no. No
more!" he begs in a broken voice. This is worse than anything I've had to
endure. Always Mulder's walked out with some sharp retort or jaunty
reassurance to me that he'll be coming ba ck. Maybe now it is only fever,
sickness and my own fear that makes him sound as if something has broken
deep inside him. I can't imagine surviving without his optimism, his
companionship, his love. 

I scream at them, curse them, damn them, offer myself in his stead.
Predictably, they ignore me and I have no doubt that, this time, at long
last, they have had to drag Fox Mulder from his cell. I pray to a God I
was certain had forsaken me, that they nee d us alive -- that they've
taken Mulder to heal him. 

That fragile hope sustains me for a while, but the gnawing in the pit of
my stomach returns with a vengeance and I vomit into the stained toilet.
The food comes and I do not eat. 

I am less hopeful now of Mulder's return. I've lost track of how many
meals have come and gone, but I'm certain it's more than the last time
they took him. I don't eat anymore. I'm numb. I drink when I can no longer
resist the overwhelming thirst, but the
 thought of food makes my stomach cringe. I can't say how many times I've
dry heaved -- my ribs are crying like my lost children. Somewhere, in the
dim recesses of my barely processing mind, I realize it's been a long time
since they've come for me. Have they learned everything they wanted? Taken
what they needed from my body? Is that why they allow me to slowly kill
myself? 

I don't pretend anymore, that they'll bring Mulder back.  It's just been
too long. 


It's been so long since I've heard the clang of keys in the lock, that it
takes me a full minute to recognize the sound. Hope leaps unbidden into my
heart. 

"Mulder? Mulder!" I cry excitedly before the door has shut. There's a long
silence, then a voice, timid and lost and afraid, drifts through the vent.
"Who's there? What's going on? What is this place?" 

I can't get it through my head. It goes swirling around in endless Moebius
loops and I can't catch it to make sense of it. They've given Mulder's
cell to someone else. He isn't coming back. He's dead. Mulder is dead. 

It's funny -- I can say the words, go over them again and again in my
head, but I can't grasp their meaning. Individually, I know their meaning.
But strung together, they just don't form a whole. It. Does. Not. Compute.
Mulder can't be dead -- after all, cheating death is what Mulder does
best. 

The man next door wants to talk. If I wasn't in such a funk myself, I
might empathize with him. He has no idea who these people are or what is
in store for him. He's terrified and he doesn't understand. Just one of
the hundreds (thousands?) who got plucke d up by a white light and if he
gets home he'll probably remember being abducted by aliens. If. 

He's scared, and he chatters and he rants, screams and demands answers. I
have none for him. I don't talk to him. He's not Mulder. I finally lose it
and scream at him to shut the fuck up. I curl into a fetal position on the
poor excuse for a mattress and let the tears stream down my face while I
relish the qu iet. I've never let myself cry since coming here -- I needed
to be strong. I needed to convince both Mulder and myself of my strength,
and I didn't want my enemies to know my weakness. Now, I just don't care. 

I'm ready to die, too. 


I'm relieved when I finally hear the lock to my cell turn. Death by
starvation is slow, but there isn't anything here I can use to speed up
the process. As it is now, I'm so weak I know I won't survive whatever
tests they've planned. A strange peace settl es over me, and I'm content
that now I'll soon be joining Mulder. 

I'm floored when the door opens. Men I expected, but not masked and
dressed in black. I flashback to the night I was taken and dizziness
overwhelms me. Suddenly strong arms are holding me upright, and the man
reaches up to remove his mask. I stare stupidly, too shocked to
comprehend. 

Skinner looks at me with kind eyes. "Dana," he whispers my name like a
prayer, his voice rough and full of emotion. It's been so long since
anyone has said that name that I'm half convinced it belongs to someone
else. Some other me, one who doesn't look l ike a refugee from Dachau and
hasn't been the victim of the most heinous medical rape. 

I sway perilously, but Skinner's strong grip is secure. One of his
companions stirs uneasily in the doorway, removes his mask. "C'mon
Skinner, let's get a move on," Krycek growls. His eyes won't meet mine and
suddenly I'm trying to pull back, so convinced
 I am that this is some sort of trick. 

"It's okay. I'll explain later." I know I've doubted Skinner in the past,
but I'm too tired and weak to waste the energy. I think I can at least
guilt Skinner into killing me quickly. 

I nod, and lean heavily on him heavily as we shuffle out of the room. I
don't spare a second look at the place I'm leaving; I'll see it in my
nightmares often enough, I suppose. I can see Skinner chafe at my slow
progress, but I'm doing the best I can. 

"Mulder's here?" Krycek asks, already kneeling at the lock. I start to say
yes, before I remember myself. "No. They've put someone else in there.
They took Mulder away. I don't know...." I look up at Skinner, knowing
tears are spilling down my face and fo r once not giving a damn. "I need
to know...." I implore, unable to make myself say the words. 

Skinner understands, bless him. "Phillips, Baker, you're with me." He
turns to Krycek. "Get her safe." 

Krycek shakes his head. "It's a fool's errand, Skinner. This is suicide,
you know that. We've barely got enough time to get out as it is. You don't
have time to go looking for a dead man." 

Skinner's eyes go colder than I ever would have thought possible. "Shut
up," he says tightly. "Let's go." 

"Your funeral," Krycek mutters. 


I awake an indeterminate time later. I see the white, sterile room, the
white lab coats and panic, certain I've dreamed the entire escape. I'm
hyperventilating and am only vaguely aware of hands on my shoulders,
holding me still, a voice in my ear, low and urgent. My name over and
over. 

I blink, and Skinner's concerned face comes into focus. I struggle to
control my breathing and nod to him that I'm okay. It's a few moments
before I can take stock of my surroundings. I'm in a hospital, not a lab.
There's an IV in my arm and a question in
 my heart. I turn to Skinner expectantly. 

His eyes say it all. The tears spill freely and he holds my hands as he
tells how he found Mulder, wires embedded in his skull, hooked up to some
sort of computer, an IV in his neck, a feeding tube pumping nutrients into
his stomach, a ventilator breathin g for him. How there was no time to
figure out how to disconnect him. How to save him. Not knowing if it was
even possible. So he did the only thing he could for his friend. He turned
the ventilator off.

To his credit, he held my eyes while he told me that Mulder didn't gasp
for breath, try to fight for air. He just -- stopped. Alarms were sounding
and Skinner did the one thing he could to ensure my partner couldn't be
revived. He took his knife, already red with the blood of the men he had
killed to reach us, and ran it across Mulder's throat. There were tears in
his eyes and he couldn't look at me. I squeeze his hands. "Thank you," I
whisper between my own sobs. We both know it is what Mulder would have
 chosen. 


Mulder is dead and I am ready to die. But the doctors don't see things my
way. I rip out the IV twice, telling them I don't want it. After the
second time, I wake up in restraints, just as I have so many times before.
It is too much. I forget where I am a nd I scream, I fight, I curse until
they drug me back to oblivion. When I wake again, the restraints are gone.
Skinners remarks wryly that there is now no doubt I grew up among sailors. 

Then he brings my mother in. 

It is her haggard face that brings it home to me. I am not the only one
who suffered, who lost. I am my mother's only living daughter. I have to
live -- for her sake. To honour the courage of the men who came for me,
for Mulder. If I die, they have risked
 their lives for nothing. 

So now I leave the IV alone. I eat what they put in front of me. They want
me to talk about that place, but I won't. I can't. Maybe one day, but I
can't face it yet. 

You see, I have a secret. I saw them, in their tanks, fetuses floating
serenely in chartreuse liquid. And I saw the labels. Mulder-Scully 1, 2 ,
3, 4, 5, and 6. So I have to wonder, are our doomed children the saviours
of mankind or its destroyers? 

So I'm going to live, Mulder. I know that will make you happy. I'm going
to fight and I'm going to win. I want our children to have a chance,
Mulder, regardless of how they were brought into this world. I will find
them -- they deserve a life, they deserve love. You once told me that
Emily was never meant to b e -- but I can't accept that. She was meant to
be, Mulder, for however short a time we had, and our children are no
different. Maybe they're some recompense for all the pain we've endured,
all that we have sacrificed.

I wonder if any of them will look like you. 


Finis